UNDERGROUND ORVIETO WITH CHAMBERS ARCHITECTS

Texas residential architect, Steve Chambers, considers Italy his favorite travel destination because of its concentration of well-preserved architecture from many periods of history. Central Italy’s topography and climate are akin to what we experience in the Texas Hill Country. The Caves of Orvieto are so unusual we feel our architectural blog readers will want to make this city on a volcanic tuff a future travel destination.

Orvieto, an Italian city in southwest Umbria with the aura of a fairy tale, is situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff called The Rupe. It was founded by the Etruscans in the 9th century B.C. Rising above vertical-faced cliffs with defensive walls fabricated in the same stone, the city’s site is one of the most dramatic in Europe. How this stunning hilltop city managed to endure on such a precarious site is a story of creative ingenuity. Its particular constellation of geological features causes landslides that impact the cliff’s perimeter. Mass movements over time have wrought a slow but unalterable degradation, progressively reducing the size of the historic village.

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